Plastic bags are widely used for the collection of grass, leaves and other yard waste. They provide a convenient means to move this material to a curbside location for pickup by a compactor truck.
When the truckload is to be dumped in a landfill or location where the trash can biodegrade, it is desirable that the grass or other material be free of the plastic bags. Some haulers achieve this by having an operator use a knife at the rear of the truck to cut open each bag so that the trash falls into a receptacle chamber for delivery into the truck's compartment without the bag. The sliced-open, empty bag is then deposited in a separate container.
One object of this invention is to provide a bag-opener device for the rear of a compactor truck which will quickly, easily and positively tear open the bottom of a plastic bag whereby the trash in the bag will fall out into the receiving compartment of the truck when the torn bag is lifted by the operator.
Another object of this invention is to provide a bag opener which can be installed or removed from the rear of a compactor truck in a few minutes and does not alter the normal operation of loading the truck and the performance of the compacting operation.
Another object of this invention is to provide a pair of fingers which are projected into the bottom of a plastic bag and then moved in opposite directions to rip open a large hole in the bottom of the bag and enable the contents thereof to be easily discharged.
A further object of this invention is to provide a bag opener having an operating cycle of only a few seconds whereby loading material at the back of a truck is fast and convenient, increasing the productivity of the operators loading the truck.
A still further object of this invention is to provide a bag opener which is safe for the loader to operate, a pair of fingers being located in an at rest starting position retracted under a support housing and being actuated by the operator to project into a plastic bag and tear the bag apart.
Other objects of this invention will be apparent hereinafter from the specification and from the recital in the appended claims.